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October 30, 2007
Blast From The Past
Speaking of the DC establishment, I'd forgotten how weird that Sally Quinn article on Washington's hatred for Bill Clinton was. Remember this quote?
Muffie Cabot, who as Muffie Brandon served as social secretary to President and Nancy Reagan, regards the scene with despair. "This is a demoralized little village," she says. "People have come from all over the country to serve a higher calling and look what happened. They're so disillusioned. The emperor has no clothes. Watergate was pretty scary, but it wasn't quite as sordid as this."
October 30, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Uh, Ezra, sometimes your intellect is making some really weird jumps. How did you come to this topic now???
Posted by: Gray | Oct 30, 2007 10:21:53 AM
That article is filled with hilarity.
The social secretary for Jacqueline Kennedy talking about how classy past presidents were, because we all know JFK never engaged in anything "sleazy" with women.
In retrospect, the whole lying section is now just quaint.
But my favorite was definitely the description of Ronald Reagan putting on a suit and tie just to walk into the Oval Office. All I could think is that he needed to get into character.
Posted by: Magenta | Oct 30, 2007 10:35:22 AM
I can't believe that Quinn, with a straight face, quotes someone *actually name Muffie* about how "sordid" l'affaire Monica was. "Worse than Watergate," yet!
I'm surprised Quinn failed to quote the thoughts of Mrs. Thurston Howell III on this important matter.
Posted by: Kathy G. | Oct 30, 2007 10:36:29 AM
"In retrospect, the whole lying section is now just quaint."
Hmm, ok, this shows how deep WaPo has sunk since Katie Graham died. But we already know that. Where is the connection to the issues at hand???
Posted by: Gray | Oct 30, 2007 10:39:20 AM
Read the post below.
Posted by: Ezra | Oct 30, 2007 10:41:43 AM
"...and with a Jewess!" was edited out of Muffie's sobbing j'accuse.
Posted by: calling all toasters | Oct 30, 2007 10:43:46 AM
This reminds me how Linda Tripp reported being "horrified" that when the Clinton administration came in, female staffers would come to work without stockings and other staffers would eat lunch at their desks! As if this was some sort of sign about how the Clinton administration was "trashing" the place.
"Muffie" represents a phenomenon I detest about DC-- people come here because they want to live some fantasy of living "the DC government lifestyle" rather than coming here because they want to, you know, do actual work.
Posted by: Tyro | Oct 30, 2007 10:44:56 AM
"Read the post below."
Oh, the 'journalist' you cite has the very same name, "Sally Quinn"! What a coincidence!
|-(
Damn, as I said repeatedly, it ain't my day. Brain won't really boot up. Guess I better go and do something that doesn't need any use of intelligence, like installing new Kubuntu 7.10...
:D
Posted by: Gray | Oct 30, 2007 10:48:05 AM
Thanks you for letting me relive my thorough loathing for all the f***ing conservative hypocrites who threw the country into a faux crisis over a bloody BJ and then goose-stepped us into the utter mess we're in today. If any of you morons happen to read this intelligent blog by accident, let me reiterate just how utterly loathsome you really are. From the bottom of my heart, with feeling, f*** you all.
Posted by: DCBob | Oct 30, 2007 10:53:14 AM
I'm surprised Quinn failed to quote the thoughts of Mrs. Thurston Howell III on this important matter.
Apropos of nothing, my wife's workplace is all about ridiculous Halloween celebrations, and she and a group are doing Gilligan's Island. My wife is going as Mrs. Howell.
Posted by: Stephen | Oct 30, 2007 10:58:11 AM
"From the bottom of my heart, with feeling, f*** you all."
We'll relay your message to "Patton", 'our' right wing troll!
:D
Posted by: Gray | Oct 30, 2007 11:11:15 AM
I hadn't forgotten how absurd the whole thing was, regarding Clinton and the DC media establishment, but how could I have forgotten the fact that some of them were blaming the Constitution for being inadequate to the task of assuaging their righteous pique?
"We don't want to hang him," says Gergen. "There's a sense that we all want to clear this up. And there's a maddening frustration that the political system doesn't have a set of penalties for this kind of activity."
"The founding fathers let us down," adds Beschloss.
Posted by: Haggai | Oct 30, 2007 11:29:58 AM
Not just any Muffie, but Muffie Cabot, it doesn't get any better than that.
Posted by: AJ | Oct 30, 2007 11:52:15 AM
"The founding fathers let us down," adds Beschloss.
Yep, the Founders have let down modern day Washington. Exactly. I could not think of a more true analogy. Hammer. Nail.
That such words would cross the lips of these people is just further proof of their complete detachment from reality and total narcissism. Not exactly great qualities in the people who are governing you.
Posted by: Steve Balboni | Oct 30, 2007 12:03:21 PM
I was but a teenager during the Monica situation, in a right wing house (my dad is a dead ender all the way), but it just seems crazy looking back.
Clinton gets a BJ and sticks a cigar up Monica's naughty bits and the world freaks out. Every pundit and newspaper man goes crazy. Bush treats those same pundits and newspaper men with contempt, lies to them blatantly with that shit-eating smirk, installs far-right plants to feed him softball questions, sets up phony press conferences, and fails miserably at the job he promised he'd do - catch Osama bin laden and destroy al-Qaeda - yet nobody cares. In fact, they help him.
What a weird town.
Posted by: FJ | Oct 30, 2007 12:36:18 PM
But my favorite was definitely the description of Ronald Reagan putting on a suit and tie just to walk into the Oval Office. All I could think is that he needed to get into character.
Bush does that as well. I wondered where he got the idea. It's as if the office were your great-aunt.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Oct 30, 2007 12:37:09 PM
On the wider point, Ezra, can you do a quick ring-round and see, fr'instance, if Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss (and my, does that title give people delusions of grandeur) is still feeling let down by the founding daddy-os?
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Oct 30, 2007 12:40:13 PM
Ugh, that whole thing makes me throw up in my mouth a little. It's loathsome, the idea that there's this self-important oligarchy who gets to decide what is right and proper and what is frightfully distasteful. "Circle jerk" is a charitable term that would apply if it wasn't so hazardous to the country as a whole. The people in this article are the same people who decide that readers don't care much about issues.
It makes me want to distribute pitchforks and cudgels.
Posted by: SDM | Oct 30, 2007 12:41:42 PM
AJ - exactly. "Muffie Cabot", oh my ...
Posted by: Dan S. | Oct 30, 2007 1:03:12 PM
Of course we all remember how Sally Quinn became Mrs. Ben Bradlee, don't we? She could have taught Monica thing or two.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Oct 30, 2007 1:15:59 PM
Any idea how she feels about the current administration? The silence is deafening on that subject, I suppose.
Posted by: dianne | Oct 30, 2007 2:11:44 PM
another striking example of the village protecting its own -- how many times have you seen jim obeirne questioned about his role in guaranteeing the iraq clusterfuck with his staffing priorities being the employment of his aei/heritage pals' children. kate obeirne is a semi-regular guest on g.e.'s media outlets and never have tweety nor timmeh ever deemed it worthy of comment.
but, yet, hillary clinton is responsible for bill clinton's infidelity.
funny how that works.
Posted by: linda | Oct 30, 2007 2:30:59 PM
OMG, the next paragraph is about Tish Baldridge, the social secretary for Jackie O, who says much the same thing. I wonder if Muffie and Tish have ever attended dinner parties at the Bradlee-Quinn residence.
Posted by: Ronnie Pudding | Oct 30, 2007 3:31:48 PM
Yeah... Ezra may be too young to realize how many eyebrows shot up at the notion of Sally "is that a long term affair with Ben Bradlee that destroyed his first marriage?" Quinn criticizing others for adulterous behavior that reflected badly on their positions in power.... Sally's an impressive example of "past? what past?" in the way we reorganize our personal histories...
Posted by: weboy | Oct 30, 2007 5:02:38 PM
The dishonesty astonishes.
Posted by: blondie | Oct 30, 2007 5:50:05 PM
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